16-05-2025
How is Germany so weird yet so dull?
When I lived in Berlin a decade ago, I was struck by the contrast between the dullness of young Germans and the incredible weirdness of everything else. Only in German could the word for 'gums' (Zahnfleisch) mean 'toothflesh'. And only in fleisch-mad Germany (the word for 'meat' is the same as 'flesh', which is somehow incredibly disgusting) would people snack on raw pork, a dish known as mett. Mett, also known, rather curiously, as Hackepeter, is sometimes offered at buffets in the shape of a hedgehog (what else?) with raw onion spines. It simply doesn't get stranger.
While musing on such things, I would cycle slowly around the bizarre gigantist ministries of the Nazi period near Checkpoint Charlie (itself a relic of a truly bonkers, menacing portion of the past), or past the Stasi headquarters in the almost mind-bendingly drab Lichtenberg. Or I'd drive down south with my then-boyfriend to Munich or Heidelberg and observe the particularly blood-curdling hedonism with which older West Germans took refreshment.
